


Let's Sew Our Broken Hearts Together And Be Good As New

by Lion_owl



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Abed Nadir, Bisexual Annie Edison, Bisexual Britta Perry, Bisexual Troy Barnes, Coming Out, Episode: s02e15 Early 21st Century Romanticism, F/F, First Kiss, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Mentions of homophobia, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Troy/Abed is secondary pairing, brief appearances of Shirley; Neil; Vicky, brief mentions of Jeff; Ian Duncan; Starburns; Pierce, future ot4, this is for Britta/Annie by the way this fic focuses on them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24671938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_owl/pseuds/Lion_owl
Summary: After her fall-out with Paige, Britta has something to confess to Annie...
Relationships: Annie Edison & Britta Perry, Annie Edison/Britta Perry, Britta Perry & Annie Edison & Abed Nadir & Troy Barnes, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 20
Kudos: 88





	Let's Sew Our Broken Hearts Together And Be Good As New

**Author's Note:**

> > _And I don't want to let this feeling go,_  
>  _Drowning in the undertow,_  
>  _Holding on to one belief, that all I need is in front of me_
>> 
>> _Hold me closer, be the one who stayed,_  
>  _When everything I believed shattered around me,_  
>  _I was lost in a bad dream when you found me,_  
>  _Reaching out in the dark, feeling the ground beneath my feet_  
> 
> 
> ~ "All I Need" by Courage My Love ~
> 
> The title is also from that song, which i listened to a Lot of times while writing this.
> 
> [lyrics text on AZ](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/couragemylove/allineed.html) // [audio on Youtube](https://youtu.be/vJszJvoRPeE) // [full album if you're interested (because i love it) on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/3u5s5VOQ3zNLg8HEoGIyJB?si=SThhdTfjQMmcl7DudE5PGg)

“You _so_ care! You were clearly _just_ hanging out with me because you thought I was gay.”

Paige leans forward across the statue again. “ _So_? What were _you_ doing with _me_?”

 _Testing the waters,_ Britta thinks. But there’s no way in hell she’s going to admit that now. Not to Paige. “Hey, what does it matter?” she says instead, aware that it makes her sound just as bad, but preferring that to the alternative. “You know? We’re both just humans trying to make our way through this crazy world.”

Paige stands up. “You’re the worst!”

Britta stands too. “What?!”

“And for the record: I never thought you were cool. I only thought you were a lesbian,” is the last thing Paige says before she storms off, leaving an offended, disheartened and humiliated Britta in her wake.

“Paige is straight,” Britta says, a few moments after she notices Annie approaching her.

“Really?” Annie says, and she doesn’t sound totally surprised.

Britta nods.

“Well, when she was gay, I thought it was really cool of you to make out with her.”

“Thanks, Annie,” Britta says, pulling her friend into a hug, feeling marginally better when Annie squeezes her tightly.

As they separate, arms still around each other, some randomer yells: “Come on, kiss her!” Britta makes a face, but Annie – Annie actually moves to do it.

“Annie!” Britta says, shaking her head. Annie doesn’t look embarrassed. “Hey, um… can we talk?”

“Sure,” Annie says, dropping her hands from Britta’s arm. “What’s up?”

“Somewhere away from prying eyes and ears?”

“Oh, okay.” This time Annie does sound a little surprised, but she allows Britta to guide her out of the cafeteria.

In the hallway, they pass Troy and Abed, just standing there in a still, quiet embrace.

Annie and Britta duck into an empty classroom and find seats near the back, away from the door and its glass panel.

They sit in silence while Britta collects her thoughts.

“I’m an idiot,” she says eventually. “How could I not have realised that Paige is straight? I mean, apparently you noticed it?”

“Her friend told me, this afternoon.” Annie says. “I should have said something to you before there was a misunderstanding. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay, I probably wouldn’t have listened to you, anyway. I really am the worst.”

“You aren’t,” Annie says.

Britta continues. “And I’m sorry I called you homophobic. I mean, I was being kind of homophobic too.”

“Were you, though?” Annie says, the words escaping before she can weigh them up; consider how much Britta has already figured out, and/or wants to hear.

Britta raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

“Well…” Annie hesitates this time, but she probably owes Britta some clarification. “I wondered if you were just using the having-a-lesbian-friend-is-cool trope as a cover?”

“You sound like Abed,” Britta says, avoiding the point.

“I thought you looked and sounded really, really upset when you told me Paige is straight.”

“I’m not!” Britta says, a little too quickly and a little too loudly.

“You’re not upset?” Annie asks.

Britta _could_ use this as a way out, could say something to the effect of actually she’s not that upset, Paige maybe isn’t that great a person and she’s disappointed but she’ll be better off for having found out sooner rather than later. But she took Annie away from the music and dancing to this deserted classroom for a reason, didn’t she?

“I’m… I’m not… straight…” she admits slowly, looking away from Annie, down at her hands, twiddling her thumbs nervously. “And I was actually really into Paige. But I’m not a lesbian, either. I’m bi.”

The next thing she knows, she is engulfed in a tight hug from Annie. Tentatively, she returns it, starting to feel more relaxed than she has all day, than she has since she met Paige a week ago.

“You’re not mad?” She asks in barely more than a whisper.

Annie moves back so they’re facing each other again, but clasps Britta’s hands in both of her own. “Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know. Pretty much everyone else I’ve ever come out to has been mad about it. That’s why I sought Paige out when I heard a rumour she’s a lesbian. It was stupid, but I just thought… I wanted a friend who understands what it’s like. And then she turned out to be hot and I had to go and fucking fall for her.”

“Oh Britta, I’m so sorry,” Annie says. “I had no idea. You always sound so confident about this stuff.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to be confident when everyone thinks you’re advocating for someone else. Not that anyone takes much of what I say that seriously anyway.”

“Well, I’m going to take you more seriously from now on,” Annie says.

“Thanks, Annie,” Britta says, feeling lighter than she has in… so long. “It actually feels really good to tell someone in the study group, finally.”

“Well, I’m really glad you felt comfortable enough to tell me,” Annie says, and Britta hugs her again, briefly.

“Man, we’ve hugged a lot tonight,” Britta says, smiling. “That jerk that yelled at us to kiss would have loved it.”

Annie blushes, then, and averts her gaze.

“Wait a sec, would you actually have done it?” Britta asks, recalling that moment.

Annie opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a slightly-too-high-pitched “uhh…”

“Annie?” Now Britta’s stomach is doing somersaults.

“Well… you are very cute,” Annie says at long last. “I don’t think I could have complained.”

“Are you…?” Britta rarely knows what it’s like to be _actually_ struggling for words, and yet here she is. “But I thought… I mean… you had so many clichéd questions… I just assumed… and then you didn’t say anything just now.”

“I didn’t want to sound like I was trying to make the conversation about me,” Annie said. “But I’m also bi… not that I have that much experience with anyone of _any_ gender. At high school, I spent too much time pining over Troy to really notice anyone else.”

Britta is just staring at her and doesn’t reply.

They sit for several minutes and let the silence wash over them, before eventually Annie speaks:

“Britta?”

Britta blinks, shaking herself out of her daze. “Sorry, I was definitely not expecting this.”

Annie gently bumps her shoulder against Britta’s. “You don’t have to do anything with that information, if you don’t want.”

“You mean the information that a cute bi girl thinks I’m cute?” Britta says.

“You think I’m cute too?” Annie asks, a grin breaking out across her face. “Do you want me to kiss you, now that there are no jeering onlookers?”

“Um.”

“Sorry, was that too forward?”

“Well it’s just… I wasn’t lying when I told Paige I’ve never kissed another woman before,” Britta says. “Not for a lack of wanting to, but, you know, the whole thing about everyone I came out to being mad about it.” she pauses. “Until I kissed Paige, that is, but I don’t really know if I want to count that one. She was just doing it for show. I think. I’m rambling, sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have suggested it,” Annie said, leaning away from Britta.

“I was the one that brought it up again,” Britta pointed out. “But do _you_ want to kiss _me_? I won’t do it if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to,” Annie says, leaning forward again. Britta leans forward as well, and puts her hands on Annie’s elbows. Annie’s hands land just below Britta’s shoulders. “Maybe we should stand?”

“Good idea,” Britta says, and they pull each other to their feet, and then they are very close, from head to toe, breath mingling. “Are you sure about this?”

Annie nods, and the action causes their noses to brush. Annie slides her hands over Britta’s shoulders and crosses her arms behind Britta’s head. Britta slides her hands down from Annie’s elbows and wraps her arms around her waist.

They pause for a moment, taking in this very new situation, before they finally close the distance between their lips, eyes fluttering closed.

 _This is nice_ , Britta thinks. _So much softer for being done in private, because we both want to, not in public, done not to prove a point or win a game. So much sweeter because it’s with someone who genuinely cares about me._

That’s the last coherent thought for however many minutes it goes on for, until they part, and lean their foreheads together while they catch their breath. If it never happens again, it’ll be worth it and Britta will cherish this memory for a long time. But she really hopes it will happen again.

“Wow,” she says. “You’re great at that.”

“As are you,” Annie says. “Wow, indeed.”

Slowly they disentangle themselves, and Annie holds up Britta’s hairband in her hand. She hadn’t realised until now that it had come loose. “Oh, thanks,” she says, taking the band and re-securing her ponytail. Annie straightens her dress.

“Um, should we maybe get back to the others before they can come looking for us?”

“Good idea. We should definitely talk more about all this at some point, figure out… everything.”

“Yeah, maybe on Saturday you could come over for lunch?”

“I’d like that.”

They’re both smiling widely as they link hands, and leave the classroom to head back towards the cafeteria, and begin to chat idly about Professor Duncan’s latest antics in Anthropology class.

“And then remember when Starburns told him that – oh!” Annie jumps slightly as they both stop in their tracks; Troy and Abed are still in the corridor where they had passed them earlier, except this time instead of hugging in a feasibly platonic manner as before, Abed has Troy pinned against the wall and they’re kissing like there’s no tomorrow.

Oh.

_Oh._

Troy and Abed freeze, then jump apart.

“What? Nothing! Who’s Abed?” Troy says in a voice far too high pitched and breathless to sound truthful even if Annie and Britta hadn’t just seen the evidence with their own eyes. He looks terrified.

After a drawn out lack of anyone knowing what to say, Abed says: “I don’t think Annie and Britta will be a problem.”

“What?” Annie says. “That sounds ominous.”

Abed points downward, and it’s only then that Annie and Britta realise that they’re still holding hands. They quickly drop them.

“So… I guess I had less to be afraid of than I thought I did,” Britta says. “This morning I thought I was the only queer person in the study group…”

“This morning I thought only me and Abed were,” Troy says.

The four of them lapse into silence again, several attempts are made to begin a sentence but they all fall short. Nobody knows what is the most appropriate way to phrase their questions.

Eventually, Abed finds another way to break the tension.

“This feels like a set-up for a different episode,” he says. “The dance is nearly over, and we haven’t had a climactic emotional moment as a group yet.”

“I’d say this is pretty climactic,” Annie says.

“True – but Jeff, Shirley and Pierce aren’t part of it, which means there’s another one. I really think any further conversation about this, tonight, is going to be left on the cutting room floor.”

“Abed’s right,” Troy says. “I’m tired and I wanna go and sit down.”

“I agree, it’s been a really long day,” Britta says. “But all of this stays between the four of us, yeah?”

“Agreed.”

“Good plan.”

“Yep. Cool cool cool.”

“I’m just going to the toilet,” Britta says. “I’ll see you all back in there?”

“Yeah, sure,” Annie says, and links arms with Troy and Abed on either side of her, and the three of them head back into the cafeteria. The crowd has thinned out, and there’s no sign of Pierce, but they catch sight of Shirley sitting on a sofa across the room, chatting away with Neil.

Troy, Abed and Annie sit down on Shirley’s other side, Annie and Troy both leaning their heads on Abed’s shoulders. Vicky shows up not long after, and tells Neil she has something she wants to show him, so the two of them bid the group goodnight.

Everyone’s phones chime, just as Britta approaches, and she sits down in Neil’s vacated spot and rests her head on Shirley’s shoulder. The five of them sit together quietly and read the long, apologetic, uncharacteristically emotional text Jeff has sent them.

The evening turned out well, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed, please leave kudos and/or a comment! if you have any Community prompts you'd like me to attempt, feel free to send me an ask [on my tumblr](https://lionowlonao3.tumblr.com/ask)


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